HS2 opening to be delayed beyond 2033
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is expected to tell Parliament on Wednesday afternoon there is 'no reasonable way to deliver' the high-speed railway on schedule and within budget.
The project has already suffered repeated delays and soaring costs despite being scaled back.
Ms Alexander will tell the Commons she is drawing a 'line in the sand' over the beleaguered rail project, as the Government attempts to reset how the UK delivers major infrastructure.
The Government intends to learn from the mistakes of HS2 so that they do a better job when it comes to projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Lower Thames Crossing, it is understood.
Housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook said there were 'serious problems' with HS2 'in terms of accountability, project overruns, costs'.
He told LBC the Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes a number of changes that will 'speed up the consenting process for nationally significant infrastructure'.
He said: 'Frankly, when it comes to HS2, in some ways we're a bit of a laughing stock around the world in terms of how we handle infrastructure.
'As a Government, we're absolutely determined to turn that around.'
The result of two reviews into HS2 are expected to be announced alongside the Transport Secretary's statement.
The first of these is an interim report by Mark Wild, the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, who was appointed late last year.
He will assess the construction of the project from London to Birmingham.
A second, wider review into the governance and accountability of HS2 Ltd, led by James Stewart, will also report back.
This is expected to set out what has gone wrong with the project, and what ministers can learn for future infrastructure projects.
The Transport Secretary is also expected to address allegations of fraud by contractors to HS2 Ltd which have emerged recently.
Earlier this week, it emerged HS2 Ltd reported a sub-contractor working on the rail line to HMRC following an internal probe.
During the statement, Ms Alexander is set to announce a new chair of HS2 Ltd.
The current chair, Sir Jon Thompson, previously announced he would stand down in the spring of this year.
His replacement will be Mike Brown, according to The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Mr Brown is the former commissioner for Transport for London, who helped to oversee the delivery of Crossrail, the transport project which became London's Elizabeth line.
HS2 was originally due to run between London and Birmingham, then onto Manchester and Leeds, but the project was severely curtailed by the Conservatives in power because of spiralling costs.
The first phase was initially planned to open by the end of 2026, but this was pushed back to between 2029 and 2033.
In 2013, HS2 was estimated to cost £37.5 billion (at 2009 prices) for the entire planned network, including the now-scrapped extensions from Birmingham.
In June last year, HS2 Ltd assessed the cost for the line between London and Birmingham would be up to £66 billion.
Concerns about the costs of the stunted project have persisted.
Revelations in November last year that HS2 Ltd spent £100 million on a bat tunnel aimed at mitigating the railway's environmental impact stunned Westminster, and were singled out by Sir Keir Starmer for criticism.
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Telegraph
35 minutes ago
- Telegraph
HS2 has devastated my constituency. And for what?
For years we have been asking 'when? When will HS2 finally be completed?' But this misses the point. We should have questioned not the deadline, but the justification and purpose of the costly, benighted vanity project. We should have demanded to know why taxpayers are being forced to bankroll this failure. Why are we allowing the civil servants who have overseen this woeful tale of waste and incompetence to remain in their posts? Why have no heads rolled, as a consequence of this national embarrassment? The most painful aspect to this sorry affair is the knowledge that, even at the outset, when it was a twinkle in Lord Adonis's eye under the previous Labour government, it lacked a business case. Not one private sector investor was willing to risk a penny piece on it. Over a decade later, it has inflicted unnecessary misery on my constituents. And now we discover that the opening of HS2 will be delayed, with the Transport Secretary announcing that the remaining section of the line will not be completed by 2033. This is hardly the first time the project has come off the tracks. First the eastern leg to Leeds was scrapped. Then the Manchester leg was curtailed. For a time, it looked as though it would terminate at Old Oak Common in West London, not even making it to Euston despite the money piled into the station's revamp. Commuting times would then have more than offset any savings from HS2's much lauded speed. That truncation has since been abandoned. The Department for Transport (DfT) has faced accusations of insufficient oversight. Leadership at HS2 Ltd, a public company owned by the DfT, has been a merry-go-round. And all of this is before you get to the £100 million tunnel to protect bats in my county, or HS2's 52-page annual Equality, Diversity and Inclusion statement For the residents of Wendover, daily life has been fundamentally changed by HS2. The impact on local amenities – on churches and cricket clubs – cannot be overstated. The brazen attempts to send HGVs down narrow residential streets have been destructive. Landowners and community organisations have been abandoned by project managers. While they face the degrading financial uncertainty that comes with losing their land, the construction companies are raking in millions thanks to the DfT's cost-plus contract model, which guarantees a profit at the expense of the taxpayer whilst reimbursing firms' costs. This is why the project's real price tag has exceeded £200 billion, with one of the worst benefit-cost ratios of any major project, all to, in the words said to me by a former Minister of State for Transport a few years back, prop up Britain's construction industry. Last month it was revealed by RAIL Magazine, through a Freedom of Information request, that not only will the final cost of Phase One reach over £100 billion, with £81 billion (at 2019 prices) attributed to constructing as far as Old Oak Common, but also that it will be 2036 at the earliest until this section is finished. It's a slap in the face for those who've experienced compulsory land purchases, land which may have provided a source of income. There is effectively no spending control mechanism. It is a project which, by its very design, benefits the contractors at the expense of hard working taxpayers who are currently seeing no benefit from HS2 and likely never will, given its reduced scope. When asked, HS2 contractor Balfour Beatty Group's former Chief Executive Leo Quinn answered 'no' to a question on the efficacy of restructuring HS2's major works contracts in the interests of the taxpayer; his suggestion that 'no contractor in the UK could actually have a balance sheet to deliver something of that [HS2's] size' is highly alarming. Not only does this bring into doubt the Department's ability to renegotiate its own contracts – it also casts significant doubt on whether the project could ever be delivered in full at all when, as Mr Quinn suggests, the private sector does not have the capital resources required to facilitate a project like this. The utter failure of HS2 is a vivid example of British decline. That so much money has been spent on something which has so miserably failed to come about does not augur well for other future infrastructure projects. We need to learn from this. HS2 ruins the lives of everyone it touches and, if it's not reigned in soon, we as a country will suffer immensely, just as my constituents have.
BBC News
43 minutes ago
- BBC News
Transport secretary confirms HS2 delay, calling the project an 'appalling mess'
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Daily Mail
44 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
HS2 rail line branded an 'appalling mess' and its opening is delayed past 2033 as focus switches to saving money after costs rose by £37BILLION
The disastrous HS2 rail project will not open as planned in 2033, a senior minister confirmed today, as a damning report reveals that its costs have soared by an astonishing £37billion. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander branded the building of a new line linking London and Birmingham with the North an 'appalling mess' and told MPs she saw 'no route' to getting trains running in eight years' time. Instead the scheme will now focus on saving taxpayers' money even if it means delaying its opening, she told the Commons this afternoon. She warned that phase 1 of the project between London and Litchfield could end up being 'one of the most expensive railway lines in the world' after years of cost overruns and delays. And she warned there was evidence of sub-contractors defrauding the scheme. The project was announced in 2010 by then Conservative Transport Secretary Philip Hammond. But ever since it has been beset by controversy over its route amid ballooning costs - including spending £100million on a tunnel for bats. Reports suggest the first phase will not open to passengers until 2035 at the earliest. The Transport Secretary said she has accepted 89 recommendations from an independent review into infrastructure projects which was spearheaded by former Crossrail chief executive James Stewart. She told MPs that the word '''affordable'' was clearly not part of the HS2 lexicon', adding: 'Quite simply, there have been too many dark corners for failure to hide in. 'The ministerial taskforce set up to provide oversight of HS2 had inconsistent attendance from key ministers, including the then-transport secretary and the then-chief secretary to the Treasury. 'The Government has re-established the taskforce with full senior attendance, as per the review's recommendations – and new performance programme and shareholder boards will offer much-needed oversight and accountability. 'Secondly, the report highlights HS2 could cost the taxpayer millions more than planned. We'll stop this spiralling any further by delivering all the recommendations on cost control. 'That starts with HS2 fundamentally changing their approach to estimating costs – it includes certainty over funding which the spending review has given, and it also means HS2 working with suppliers so their contracts incentivise saving costs for taxpayers. 'As far as I'm concerned, suppliers should make a better return the more taxpayer money they save.' Mike Brown, former Transport for London (TfL) commissioner is set to become the new chairman of HS2 Limited - the company in charge of the project. The review hit out at spending, including £2billion laid out by the Tory government on the route between Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds before they scrapped it. More than £250million was also spent by HS2 Ltd on failed designs for a new station at Euston. The company was reportedly asked to provide a cheaper alternative, but ended up nearly doubling the price in the second design. Earlier this month a whistleblower who lost his job after accusing HS2 executives of fraud over the true cost of the project won more than £300,000 in compensation. Risk management expert Stephen Cresswell repeatedly raised concerns that the cost of the high speed rail line - which could end up landing the taxpayer with a bill of more than £80billion - was being 'actively misrepresented'. The consultant was told by one HS2 executive to 'disregard' scenarios he had prepared which forecast a 'significant' increase in the price to the public, an employment tribunal heard. As a result, Mr Cresswell warned that he found himself in a 'very uncomfortable position' of having a 'very different' view to the high speed rail line company's 'documented position'. The tribunal heard that in a meeting with bosses he said 'fraud had been committed because he understood fraud to be making false statement so as to secure a benefit'. After losing his job, Mr Cresswell took HS2 to an employment tribunal, claiming he had his contract terminated and been denied other work as a result of blowing the whistle. After the rail firm admitted that he had not given adequate levels of protection following his disclosures he has now been awarded £319,070 in damages. In response, campaigners said it was not to late for Labour to consider scrapping high speed rail over years of 'catastrophic mishandling'. HS2 Ltd previously said investigations into Mr Cresswell's claims found no evidence of fraud or illegal activity. Last month a DfT spokesperson said: 'We take all whistleblowing allegations seriously and it is important that individuals are given appropriate levels of protection, which clearly was not the case for Mr Cresswell.
